Follow the Moon's Cycle

Archive for August, 2016

A new Moon offers us a new beginning, a path we cannot see to the end. Thursday, September 1st, we experience the entry to a new lunar cycle, which promises wholeness, but only if we are willing to step into mystery.

This process is pictured above with sunshine to light the gate to the place we travel, but no clue as to what we will find along the way as we proceed into darkness. One thing is promised in this chart: we must honor both sides of our nature, material and spiritual. We cannot ignore either side of our Self, or we will be crippled, nor can we value one side over the other, anymore than we can ‘favor’ a right or left leg if we are to walk with ease. The chart is perfect illustration of the two beautiful aspects of life, our need to keep in touch with our mysterious body, and our illusive soul.

All this talk of body and soul is illustrated in the opposition between the Sun/ Moon in Virgo and Neptune in Pisces. Virgo is deeply concerned with the health of the body, and most especially digestion and nervous systems. This is a good time to care for and honor the reality of our physical needs. Virgo energy is focused on carefully choosing what will be kept from the harvest for eating now, for winter storage and for spring seeds. This is a matter of life and death in an indigenous society. How we eat, what we store in our body, and how we value our physical health are all Virgo concerns.

Mercury is the ruler of Virgo and so is connected to the nervous system, our body’s communication line. If Mercury becomes over jazzed, the nervous system falls apart and nothing works. Right now Mercury, Jupiter and Venus are all camped in late degrees of Virgo. This could really cause a kind of vibratory excess…great for dancing, and music, and wild discussion, but not necessarily peaceful!

Neptune is a tidal wave in our life, which leaves us with nothing solid under our feet. He brings us dreams, visions, and illusions. How do we sort out his gifts? If we develop our spiritual talents, acknowledge our intuitive heart /brain, we can swim with him. The only way to weave the material demands of Virgo with the spiritual thrust of Neptune in Pisces is to understand and accept our own duality. Virgo helps us to see the granite under our feet. Neptune reminds us we have a dream side, which cannot be left unexplored.

This is the beginning of eclipse season. The new Moon is a a partial solar eclipse visible in Africa and the Middle East. Even if we don’t see the eclipse, we will experience it through dreams and waking imagery, but we must be willing to listen and honor the message. Our culture is so bombarded with messages that we can lose track of any kind of inner dialogue. During an eclipse, with neither Sun nor Moon to guide us, we will have to be our own guide, our shining light. Our self acceptance has to be developed to lead the way in dark places. This is especially true because Mars and Saturn hold the reins on the opposition between Sun/Moon and Neptune and the Lunar nodes. With no inner guidance fear and anxiety take over at this time. But if we are self aware, we can use the energy of these two ‘malefics’ to carry us into new and powerful experiences.

Here is my favorite Tarot card, the VIII of Cups which illustrates the journey to wholeness possible by making contact with our darkest and deepest side. The occult name for this card: ‘Journey to Higher Ground.’ A pilgrim travels with only his staff and a strange luminary to help him on his pathless journey. He leaves behind eight cups still filled with emotional ‘juice.’ There are no guarantees, no maps, no GPS. The promise is ‘wholeness.’

‘Our lives encompass highs and lows, inners and outer, positives and negatives. We perceive duality are tossed by the pairs of opposites with only a certain freedom to choose, until we blend sufficiently with the ‘higher’ to see that the ‘lower’ is a vital part of the process and that these apparently conflicting forces interact to generate the dynamic that lifts us into the vast unity which we are. Then we can understand the meaning of ‘resist not evil’; we can accept that whatever comes to us is necessary for our own development; and we can reconcile our two halves. Then we can recognize that our ‘higher’ self is indeed angelic, and even find, as I did that we are walking with the angels.’

Dorothy MacLean, one of the founders of Findhorn community.

All Photos Bruce Lhuillier

Acknowledgements: over the last few days, I have had intense conversations with a number of friends. These conversations, are the basis for most of the written material in this Moon blog. I want to thank Jdth Stone, Niko Parth, Dana Cushing, Maryann Cushing, Wayne Rucker, Jackie Maida, Clark Clements. And I especially want to thank Bruce Lhuillier for the use of his exquisite photos, which say what words can never convey.

Sarah Fuhro Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive sarahfuhro@gmail.com

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present. To learn more, please visit www.sarahfuhro.com.

The full Moon of August 18 is tightly interwoven with other planets and asteroids! There is a lot of pressure from these ‘aspects’ to the Sun and Moon, just as there is on us as human beings when we use our power, or feel the limits of our power, or take joy in or regret the way we have used power. The subject of power is always part of our lives, a challenge we feel daily, and which astrologers constantly weigh in charts.Sun in Leo has traditional power reserved for this sign. Just as the lion is the ‘king of the beasts,’ Leo Sun is imbued with heightened power. And so in astrology, the sign, placement and aspects to each planet are weighed to understand how it feels to be in a particular moment.

The fiery Leo Sun beats down on us in the Northern Hemisphere, but the Aquarius Moon has a cool, balanced nature to give us the relief we need from summer heat.

This particular Sun Moon opposition falls across my astrology chart’s horizon line. August
18 is the day the Sun comes back into play for me each year as it touches down on my Ascendant, and enters the First House. On this day, light. the moment of dawn, I no longer must feel my way through the dark, but can see again! Each of us has this day, which follows a month of dark Sun, but like night the Sun’s journey through our Twelfth House has special gifts!

How we deal with time and the passage of time is one of the themes here. Are we afraid of time, feel ‘pressed’ for time, or worry about time so that we can’t live in the present moment, eternal time, dance with time. That’s one reason to celebrate the full Moon, alone, or in a group. It’s a moment in time, which reoccurs monthly to bring heightened consciousness.

Every few years I get caught up in collage. The chart for this event seems perfect for collage illustrations. Like an astrology chart, a collage has disparate pieces, which must come together with acknowledgement to all the other bits. And, like an astrology chart, certain aspects of the whole picture will jump out with greater importance.

The aspect, which catches my attention in this chart, is the relationship between the planet Uranus and the Sun and Moon. Electrical Uranus is in Aries, a sign of fire, courage, anger, sexuality. Uranus has a close companion, Eris, a dwarf planet, named for the sister of the god Aries. She is the divinity of Chaos. We have all noticed the effects of Uranus and Eris in conjunction. There seems to be a pounding quality to the times, or are we just more aware of the sudden and unexpected events which transform the world around us? We seem to be like grain on a mill stone. Will we turn into flour or dust? This question seems to be in the Sabian Symbol for Uranus today: ‘The possibility for man to gain experience at two levels of being. The revelation of new potentialities.’ This is the energy (Uranus traveling through Aries) available, if we dare to use it. This is the challenge of each full Moon. Regal Leo and Humanitarian Aquarius both have a place in our consciousness.

There is another opposition which seems significant..Neptune and Venus are on opposite sides of the chart. Venus is about love, beauty, regeneration, and Neptune is also about love, a love that goes beyond time, the essence of love, the oceanic quality of love. To be in contact with this love, ecstatic, universal, it is necessary to release judgment, ego, and self criticism. The way to this is not part of our culture, although it never disappears completely. The Sabian Symbol for this degree of Neptune, suggests one technique: ‘In the sanctuary of an occult brotherhood, newly initiated members are being examined and their character tested. ‘ This was part of the secret societies which were prevalent in pre Christian Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean, the societies of Orpheus and Persephone and Isis. All included stories of Hades (Pluto) and the journey into the Underworld. They seem to have in common, a disappearance of the outer society’s hierarchy, e.g. women and slaves are treated as equals to free men, and there is a process of death and rebirth which is experienced over and over again.

Sarah Fuhro Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive
The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present. To learn more, please visit www.sarahfuhro.com.

Like this:

‘Transformation is to see the light in yourself, and to honor it.’ Jdth Stone

This new Moon falls at the time of Lughnasadh when we honor Lugh, the light bringer. It’s the time of Leo the lion, sacred beast of the Sun. But the season of Lughnasadh comes with its own shadow. The Sun is king in Leo, yet, in the Northern Hemisphere daylight hours are noticeably shorter.

It’s a harvest festival, but the sacrifice of plant and animal life, which feeds us, is woven into the celebration.

It’s a traditional time for marriages, yet Lughnasadh celebrates the funeral games of Teilte, the foster mother of Lugh, she who died plowing Ireland for agriculture.

As a harvest festival, Lughnasadh acknowledges the advantages of farm life, the settled
village, the security of a more dependable food source. Yet we remember the old ways of wandering with the seasons, the life of the hunter gatherer, who migrated with the animals and plants. Lughnasadh mixes weddings and funerals, games and fire wheels and reminds us that nothing is all light or all dark.

The chart patterns for this new Moon feels light hearted and hopeful compared to the last few weeks of shock and chaos. Leo reminds us of the light we carry within, our personal Sun. Creativity and fun reemerge from the ashes and dust. Saturn adds spice with a trine from optimistic Sagittarius with the Sabian Symbol: ‘a theatrical representation of a golden-haired goddess of opportunity.’ We become aware of resources to recover and reconfigure what may have seemed lost or hopeless.

Venus is in a Leo with a degree image of hopeful possibility: ‘The luminescence of dawn inKeynote:The exalting challenge of new opportunities at the threshold of a new cycle.’

A new Moon is a seed, a possibility for a new projects, or insights. Yet it always takes place in darkness. The Moon herself is missing from the sky. The Sun and Moon are on their honeymoon. Left to our own devices, we can dance to this Leo Moon with wild abandon. Leo says we must shine with our own light.

Take time at this new Moon, in the ancient season of Lughnasadh to celebrate all the gifts that come our way. Something awaits each of us in the seeds ripening under the Leo Sun and Moon.

This is the Moon of Coll, Hazel, the source of poetic inspiration and divination. Nuts from the Hazel are the food of the most ancient of animals, the Salmon who lives in the pool of Segais. This is the tree of intuition as well as poetry. Divination and the power of poetry are mingled. Dowsers often choose Hazel twigs for pliancy and proximity to water. Hazel guides us to acceptance of our creative talents. We can take what the ancient knew and, like the Salmon, follow a course to sources, long forgotten. The Heron is the bird of this Moon. She stalks her food in absolute stillness. Like her, if we are patient with ourselves, we can find our creative nutrition.

Photo Credits: Red Salamander Brudce Lhuillier

Dancers in the Sun Sarah Fuhro

Harvest bounty Bruce Lhuillier

Green Goddess Bruice Lhuillier

Fire Dancer Bruice Lhuillier

Heron in Grass Robert Fuhro

Sarah Fuhro

Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present. To learn more, please visit www.sarahfuhro.com.